The Least Vile Christmas Tradition
by Raiden Miosaki
Summary: Kankri is out, Sollux is a jerk, and so that leaves Karkat Vantas home alone on Christmas eve loathing the glorified holiday all on his own. Who or what comes along to make his night slightly less vile?


_**A/N: Hi guys! I wrote this for Christmas, because I felt like it! It's Highschool Humanstuck AU. But not the same one as in my current story, obviously. Any of you who has been reading my current Homestuck fanfiction I thought I'd give you a cute fluffy fanfiction as an apology, though I'm not sure if any of you like JohnKat. (I actually like it a little more than KatNep) I know, I know. Surprising. Anyway! Yeah, I hope you like it, and Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates it!**_

I had never been one to commit to stupid holiday traditions. Or really, holidays in general.

Dammit, holidays fucking sucked.  
_Fucking sucked._

And Christmas was the worse, because it was so goddamn cheery. People were annoying enough during the other parts of the year, but this was the time of the year where, once December kicked the fuck in, everyone suddenly pretended they cared.

Older siblings who were douchey to their younger siblings suddenly decided to pretend to be nice for a month, it was almost like they were trying to redeem themselves, or justify their past behavior.

Like.

_'sorry I was such a goddamn jackass this year, here's a month of me trying to justify my dick behavior, oh by the way I'm going to be twice the jackass next year that I was this year.'_

Fuck them.

_Fuck them._

Okay, in reality, I was just talking about siblings in general. My older brother wasn't the worst. He was more distant than anything, and we had different opinions. That was it.  
We got along when we had to, and we didn't completely fucking hate each other, but I knew it happened.

Families decided to pretend that all was well in the world, and act like they don't all fucking hate each other for a month, and well, that may have been all fine and fucking dandy to other people, but it just made me loathe humanity more.

That's what Christmas did for me.

I saw through the fakeness of it all, and asked, "what the fuck is the point?"

Though, my friends said that made me the grinch, or Ebenezer fucking scrooge.

Some shit like that.

They called me names like that, as if I gave a fuck.

I didn't give a fuck about their holly, and mistletoe, and Christmas cheer. I mean, all this over a pretentious fat guy coming down your chimney, to steal your goddamn cookies? It was such a glorified holiday, I mean, Jesus _Christ_.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my door being knocked on. I looked up from my computer, and sort of just glared at the door, hoping that whoever it was would go the fuck away if I didn't answer.

But, of course, that didn't work.

After the knocking part was over, Kankri opened the door, looking in the room. He was wearing a coat over his usual ugly sweater, and a hat and mittens as an add on, as if the dumbass was planning on going out into the cold, and prancing about.

His douche-faced greaser boyfriend was lingering about in the hallway behind him, as if he was waiting around for him.

"What the fuck do you want?" I groaned.

Kankri gave me stern eyes, as if to say that he didn't approve of my negative attitude, but he kept his mouth shout about it, as, he knew, if he started lecturing me now, that it could go on for quite some time.

"Cronus and I are leaving the house, all right?" He said.

"…Uh, you can come along if you'd like, it would guilt me a copious amount if I knew I was leaving my little brother alone on Christmas eve."

"Go on." I urged, not really wanting to be the awkward third wheel on my brother's obvious date.

"I hate Christmas, anyway."

Kankri shrugged, most likely secretly thankful. He often offered to take me along when he and Cronus left the house, but, he knew as well as I did how fucking awkward it would be for the both of us if I _did_ tag along.

"Suit yourself," He said, after a moment of processing my reply.

He looked back at his grease-head boyfriend, shrugging his shoulders.

"Let's go, Cronus."

And within a few minutes, I heard the front door shut.

I glanced out the window, seeing that the snow had begun falling again.

Fucking idiots.

Walking around in the snow like that, they would fucking freeze.

I was 500% okay with being cooped up in my room on my computer on Christmas eve. I was safe from the cold, and locked away from all cheery Christmas interaction.

What more could I ask for?

My phone vibrated, and I half-heartedly grabbed it from my pocket, glancing at the text.

_hey douchebag are you 2eriiou2ly going two 2pend_ _chriistma2 eve iin your room feeliing 2orry for your2elf?_

Of course it was Sollux.

I knew for a fact that he, himself, wasn't even the biggest fan of the holidays either. But he could pretend to like it for his girlfriend, Aradia.

Damn Aradia.

She always brought out the fucking best in him and it made me fucking sick.

_THAT'S NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUISSNESS IS IT, FUCKTARD?_

I texted back, quickly.

_2uit your2elf, man. _

_YEAH, YEAH. FUCK YOU._

We talked back and forth like that, but as soon as he stopped replying, I felt a bit lonely.

God, I fucking hated winter break.

It was too goddamn cold to go outside, and even if it wasn't, I would be already risking my thin as it is, sanity, by going out there, more than likely running into cheery Christmas glorifiers.

Aradia and Sollux were most likely going out with a couple of other classmates, and doing… whatever the fuck kids did around Christmas time, I didn't know.

I just knew I didn't give a single fuck.

Just fucking ignore them, Karkat. It'll all be over by the time school starts up again.

I spent the remainder of the day, just browsing the internet, and casually reading a few chapters of my current romance novel, here and there.

It was beginning to look slightly dark outside, and Kankri hadn't come home yet.

Fuck.

He would probably be out late.

I groaned, glancing at my laptop, which had went to sleep, since I'd been so distracted by my book, and I shrugged, not bothering, and just turning back to my already half-way finished novel.

30 minutes later, I was interrupted by the obnoxious sound of something hitting my window, startled, and confused, I got up, saving my place in my book.

Fucking Kanrki probably got himself locked out of the house.

Ugh.

I opened the window.

"Kankri, Jesus _fuck._ Remember your goddamn keys next time—"

I cut myself off when I noticed that it wasn't my brother, it was none other than John fucking Egbert. The school dork (aside from me, but I was more in the closet as a dork than he was).

I'd once hated the guy, with a burning passion, but what was worse than hating someone, was slowly beginning to lose that bit of hate for said person.

John Egbert, the boy I'd fucking loathed through middleschool, had actually become a close friend of mine when I entered highschool, as we shared a love of movies, among other things.

But I hadn't expected to see him on Christmas eve.

"Didn't you hear, Egbert?" I called down.

"I'm not fucking hanging out with Sollux and his douchebag group, so if you're part of all that, go home."

I started to slam the window.

"Karkat, wait—"

I froze, and glanced out again.

"What?" I asked, confused.

John stood a story below, wearing a blue coat (much too casual for the weather, mind you) and he had his hands stuffed in his pockets, as if he wasn't wearing any gloves.

He wasn't wearing a hat or anything either, so his black messy hair was littered with snow.

He laughed because he saw the confused look on my face, and I suppose it wasn't very often people saw me that way.

"Just come downstairs, okay?" He said.

"No, it's fucking frigid down there!" I retorted, agitated.

"Then at least come downstairs and let me_ in!"_ John whined.

"No."

"Karkaaaaaat…"

And the fucking whining began.

"No!"

"Karkat, pleeeeaaas—"

"All right!"

Who fucking knew how long he could stretch that word out for? I didn't wanna fucking wait to find out, plus, me standing there, letting the cold in the house was really defeating the point of me not getting cold.

So I begrudgingly shut the window, threw my shoes on, and zipped the black hoodie I was already wearing, and headed downstairs like that.

I had expected to see a freezing Egbert standing on my front porch shivering, maybe half way grateful that I was letting him into the house, but what I saw shocked me even more than the first round of shock from seeing him standing outside at 8:00 at night outside my house of all places.

I'd gotten the impression that John was alone, but when I opened the door, ready to spew out a rant about hating his guts for showing up unannounced, his half-sister, Jade, was out there too, along with his pretentious cool-kid friend, Dave Strider.

I looked directly at John, giving him the evil eye, because tricking me hadn't been an accident.

He looked horrified when I gave him that look and put up his hands up in defeat.

I just about slammed the door on all of them, but Jade put her foot in the way.

"No. No fucking way. I can't put up with all your insipid tomfuckery, all right? One friend comes over, Kankri will come home, and understand, three friends, he'll think I fucking planned it, and I'll get a goddamn lecture, so fucking scram before he gets home."

I started to shut the door again, but this time, Dave grabbed it, stopping it before I could.

"Karkat, Dude. Chill. Jade and I aren't stickin' around."

I groaned, fully opening the door again, muttering something begrudging under my breath, and it was in that moment that I noticed John's face was red, and not just from the cold.

He seemed really fidgety, and he was messing around with his fingers inside the pocket of his coat, trying to distract himself.

What the fuck was all this about?

Jade nudged him forward, looking like she was having a hard time containing her excitement.

This seemed like they were making a pretty big deal out of something, and I still wasn't sure what.

"All right, cut all this fucking BS and tell me what the fuck is going on." I groaned.

"You're all annoying as fuck, and I wanna get this over with."

Dave shrugged and pointed up.

I gave him a weird look before, agitated as I was, I looked up, and that's when I saw it and it sunk in.

These goddamn douchefucks had tricked me.

I didn't know how much Egbert had to do with it, because Dave and Jade were obviously putting a lot of pressure on him.

But they'd hung fucking mistletoe above my door.

My face heated up, and I slowly looked at all three of them, giving them the sharpest glare I could. Fuck them. I wasn't going to be kissing anyone! Not with a fucking audience.

"Karkat, I'm _sorry!_ It was a dare, okay?" John protested, upon seeing the look on my face.

He was already extremely flustered at this point.

"Aw, throwing us under the bus like that? I'm hurt, not cool, man." Dave shook his head.

Okay, to expand on this whole situation.

It wasn't a fucking secret, that over the months, John had developed a crush on me. We spent a lot of time together at school, and even on the weekends at times.

Everyone knew.

Even though John tried his fucking hardest to hide it. With all his self-reassurance of the fact that he was straight.

I hadn't, myself, known until a classmate accidently leaked it out to me.

And though, I fucking hated myself for it, I liked him too. Yeah, the guy was the dictionary definition of annoying, but I found myself hating him less and less all the time, and then… well,_ this._

I could tell this wasn't going the way Dave and Jade had thought it would.

Dave and Jade were one of the most well-known couples at school. To Egbert's dismay, or course. It must have fucking sucked having a best friend who was dating your sister.

And due to the fact that Dave was nearly always busy with Jade, Egbert ended up flocking towards me more and more.

But, seeing as Dave and Jade were still in their little honey moon phase, they thought they could give off couples advice. This was obviously their work, trying to get John and I together.

Without a word, I reached up, and I ripped down the mistletoe.

Jade opened her mouth like she was going to protest, but I cut her off before she started.

"Shut up." I said.

"Just shut the fuck up right now, Harley."

"Karkat, I—"

"You too, Egbert."

And before another word was even uttered, I grabbed John by the wrist and pulled him into the house, slamming the door.

"W-what are you—"

"Shhh."

I cut him off, "shhh-ing" him with venom in my voice.

I dragged him to the living room, still not saying much of anything, and I pushed him onto the couch.

He opened his mouth to say something again, but I glared at him.

After a moment, I sat down next to him, still giving him a look that was preventing him from questioning what the fuck was going on.

After I took a deep breath, mentally battling with myself as to whether or not I could go through with what I was thinking, and with that, I took out the mistletoe that I'd previously ripped down, and I held it up.

"Okay."

There was a silence, as John stared at me, still extremely flustered.

"Okay…what? Karkat, _dude._ You're not making any sense!" John despaired.

_"Okay_, meaning, you can fucking kiss me now, jackass!" I informed, agitated.

John stared at me for a second, completely shocked.

"But I—"

"Just do it, you incompetent fuckoff." I grumbled.

And with that, he leaned in, and kissed me, it was light, and quick, but nevertheless, it was a kiss.

We looked at each other for a few seconds, the awkward silence commencing, as that had been our first kiss after quite a fucking long build up.

"Well, are you just going to sit there like a douchebag wearing a goddamn coat in the house?" I demanded, begrudgingly, breaking our silence.

"O-oh…! Right." He chuckled, nervously, slipped the coat off, revealing his Ghostbuster's t-shirt.

We grumbled at each other for a few more minutes, over what movie we were going to watch, and I finally gave in, saying he could pick whatever the fuck he wanted, as long as it wasn't Con-Air.

He tricked me into watching that godforsaken movie _one time_, and now never again.

I left him rummaging through my movies, as I went upstairs, planning on setting the mistletoe aside.

I glanced down at it, instantly recalling the kiss it had resulted in.

Okay._ Fine._

Maybe not _all_ Christmas traditions were the fucking worst. 


End file.
